Faith provides bad reasons to do good things. #shorts

[MsSophia.]

I think in the long run it's better for a society to have compassionate members than to have people who require payment for good deeds.

[robdev]

This is beautiful, I love this man. Perfect words. I don’t think there are many people who are able to so eloquently voice their opinion as Sam. ❤

[john.]

When I was a religious person, I just did good because I could. I didn't think about it like this, but I think there definitely were people like that who I knew

[whatis_asis]

@Sam Harris,

A couple of questions for you as I feel like you may be discounting something a potentially deeper:
1. Do you distinguish faith from trust? 2. What value do you place on faith as a step in the process to get somewhere else?
3. We all have faith and trust in non-religious institutions. Isn’t it misleading to focus on faith since it cannot be disconnected from the subject who possess faith? Why isn’t faith just a tool? A good person having good faith vs an ignorant / bad person having bad faith. The subject uses the tool with good or bad intentions. A hammer is a hammer is a hammer. If a subject uses a hammer in a bad way, why call the hammer bad? Why isn’t the faith-trust tool set just ‘that which you hold onto to cross the abyss of despair’?

[MrSidney]

They make you sit through sermons before they feed you too

[dabidibup]

“You don’t incentivize good people to do good things, they’re already good. What you want is to incentivize bad people to do good things, because they’re the ones who have no reason to not be bad”
-I think it was Sowell, I’m not sure

[louiscolborn]

The meaning of faith is, , , you believe what others want you to believe no matter how ridiculous. There is no such thing as magic and nothing comes back from the dead.

[cmar]

Christians who go to Africa to help people do not think they will get a benefit for it in the afterlife, they ARE doing it purely for compassion. That’s what I love so much about Christianity. Even though it is often misunderstood, even by followers. We are given grace through Jesus Christ through no act of our own, therefore we are filled with thankfulness and wish to share with others the compassion that was shared with us.

[stephanieleonard]

Most Christians don't help others for a reward. The Holy Spirit moves us with compassion and love. Yes there are some who don't truly have the Holy Spirit and think they will be rewarded for doing certain things. But most of us do it because it's the right thing to do and because we SIMPLY love everyone and SIMPLY because we have compassion on others and want to help them.

[krisf]

Reasons are never good nor bad. Nothing in the composition of reason provides for it either to be a good or bad one.

The nature of reason has nothing to do with such polarities. That is your perception attempting to impose itself on the essence of what reason is.

Reasons stemming from faith ultimately stems from doubt. That is a fact and is therefore neither a good or bad one.

Faith is an admission of one’s own uncertainty, together with a resolve to remain in a state of uncertainty based on the firm belief that it will later be absolved.

As with the reasons associated with faith, the belief that one’s own uncertainty will later be absolved also stem from doubt. If they didn’t, it would not be a belief it would be a fact.

So faith, and the belief and reasons that stem from it, are activities that operate through the presence of doubt. To suggest this is good or bad is unnecessary and meaningless additional information.

Activities driven by reasons that do not stem from faith are likewise neither good or bad.

They either stem from doubt though being associated with another belief (which may or may not be religious in origin) or they stem from certainty being associated with an actual sensation or measurable outcome that the activity will cause.

Reason stems from either doubt or uncertainty Sam, your perception of what is good or bad has no influence on that because it is fact.

What the imposition of your perception of what is good and bad with respect to reason does do, however, is give rise to a conflict with anyone whose perception lies in opposition to your own.

I see no basis through which your perception of good and bad can be added to the structural nature of reason. It appears from what you are saying that you simply believe it should be.

That is not to say you are right or wrong. Its just that your perceptions are unable to impede upon or influence the structure and nature of reason.

That appears fairly straight forward and obvious does it not ?

[Taveren]

as a non-religious person, id say faith gives direction, from a facade of a source.

[feetunes]

Many would argue that this view doesn't describe how things work for a faith motivated person at all. Rather it is their faith which leads to them having more compassion, and it is the compassion (not a promised reward) that causes them to "go to Africa". I get frustrated when faith positions are countered with this Big Stick, and slightly ignorant approach, to what occurs in the lives of real people. I think you can do better Sam.

[debj]

I love what your dear friend Hitch said "religion poisons everything".

[bow_wow_wow]

What I'm missing from your spiritual vision is a genuine metaphysical reason to care. About anyone or anything. If life is the process of swirling down the drain, what could there possibly be to care about?

[virtuosa]

But metaphysics is a fact of life and these manifestations get powerful designations mostly because we don't understand this reality

[santinopassalacqua]

We should never use fear as a motivator to do good things. This clearly stemmed from religion, and society has taken off with it in the way children are taught.

[CIA.-ub]

We don't do good thing because Jesus rewards us. We do good thing because we live God and we truly love all humans created after his image.

[Jeffhowardmeade]

So long as the outcome is the same, who cares?

[Uppernorwood]

I used to think this way too. But why do we care about other human beings? It’s certainly not inborn nature to care about strangers.

[diggernick]

and thats why in Islam you will be punished for doing good things purely for selfish reasons